Notes

Please completely uninstall previous versions before installing this version.
PLEASE NOTE: Any NPC you've modified that's joined the
party won't revert to normal upon uninstalling the mod: at that point they're
permanently stored in the saved game rather than just afloat in the override.
You must start a completely new game to make changes.

Components

Loosely based on Gebhart Blucher's "Alternate BG2NPCs" mod
from way back in the day, suggested for update by Azazello, supported by
cmorgan and coded/made monstrous by Nythrun (hi there!).

Primary Component

This serves two purposes: the first is that it corrects creatures using
the wrong .eff version, the second is that it allows you to "batch uninstall" all
components you might have installed by uninstalling it. That's about it.

Optional: Tweak the weapon proficiency rules

When you're altering the joinable NPCs,
this mod follows whatever rule set is in place. So if you want mages to be
able to use crossbows, and you want Edwin to have to crossbow proficiency,
you'll need to change the rules so that this mod will know what rules to
follow. Most of the content here mirrors other mods and is presented as convenience,
or as an alternative to the many mods that must be installed last.

You can:

Allow druids one star in any weapon type a fighter can use.

Allow grandmastery for fighter multiclasses - some will find it cheesy,
but if you were going to get this elsewhere (e.g. BG2 Tweaks)
then you might as well have it for party joinables too.

Allow backstab with any weapon a mage/thief, fighter/thief, or cleric/thief
can use - Backstabbing with a two-handed sword shouldn't be less effective
than backstabbing with a quarterstaff, yes?

Make quarterstaves unusable for backstabbing - by request.

Restrict Fighter/Druids from armours single class Druids cannot wear
- by request, seems closer to the arbitrary 2nd Ed rules in any case.

Allow clerics one star in any weapon type a fighter can use - If your
deity's weapon is a sword, you should bloody well be able to use a sword!
:)

If you refused "one star in anything for clerics", Allow fighter/clerics
and fighter/mage/clerics two stars in any weapon type - just using the
fighter restrictions rather than the cleric

If you refused "one star in anything for clerics", Allow cleric/thieves
one star in any weapon type a fighter can use - otherwise cleric-thieves
can only backstab with quarterstaves and clubs, and it's a bit dull.

If you refused "one star in anything for clerics", Allow cleric/rangers
two stars in any weapon type - I'm sure you can make up your own mind :)

Optional: Mod exported PCs

Currently deprecated as it's dangerous to uninstall. Brave users can, if
they so desire, undeprecate it, change an exported PC,
copy that PC elsewhere, and uninstall
this component. Most people who'd consider doing that will probably use an
editor like DLTCEP or NI instead
:) Since I know of no method that will allow this work both correctly and
unintrusively, for now it's staying unavailable.

Optional: Joinable NPCs more
closely match the PCs experience

NPCs, upon joining, will
have their XP total adjusted
to something closer to the PC's.
This component is new to the last beta, and I don't much like the implementation
at this point. It'll be revised, eventually.

Optional: Mod an NPC

Pick one and go nuts. Or don't :)

Q&A

Q: So, what's this do, then?

A: You're offered a list of the NPCs who
can join your party and share your kooky adventures. You can choose to tamper
with some or all or none of them. Let's say you've chosen Minsc. You can
assign him any class that a PC could
have (Ranger Minsc! Fighter/Thief multi Minsc! Sorcerer... erm, Minsc!).
After selecting a class, you can assign a kit (if you like). The list of
kits you're offered is any kit that's installed in your game that the class
you've chosen could select. Thus, if you've turned Minsc into a Fighter/Thief
multi, you can give him any fighter kit or any thief kit (Berserker/Thief?
No problem. Rather have Fighter/ Swashbuckler? No problem. Weimer's Anti-Paladin/Thief?
Well, if you're sure....). Note: you can advance in only one kit at a time
and cannot have two. This is hardcoded and will not be changed by this mod.

After, say, turning Minsc into a Berserker/Thief, you get to spend his
forty thief skill points that he gets for first level. Put them all in Move
Silently if you want to replicate his old ranger ways, or put them into Pickpockets
and Detect Illusion if that's more fun. It's your game. Then you get to pick
your starting weapon proficiencies. Lastly, if you're a Sorcerer you pick
your two first level spells.

Now when you meet Minsc in game, whenever you meet Minsc in game, he'll
be a level one Berserker/Thief - but while his level has been changed, his
experience hasn't been. So when you meet him in Chateau Irenicus, you'll
be able to immediately level him to whatever level his 89,000 experience
would allot him, and reap all the usual benefits :)

Q: That sounds complicated and time consuming. Why didn't you just
set the NPCs to level
zero like I do with Shadowkeeper and skip this long sequence of selection
menus?

A: Because leveling from zero to one doesn't give you the correct amount
of thief skill points nor weapon proficiencies. If I'd done that, your party
members would be permanently short - or - I'd have to pick where to assign
this stuff for you, which rather defeats the purpose of the mod, doesn't
it?

Q: Isn't the concept here kind of cheesy?

A: Perhaps :) It really depends on what you do with it and where your threshold
for cheese lies. For example, I've always thought it silly that Jaheira shows
up in BG2 specialized in club
just because the game designers wanted to show off their absurd-looking and
weak new weapon type. No one likes clubs, and she's carrying a quarterstaff
in her BG portrait for crying out
loud! If this bothers you, you can change her into a fighter/druid with no
kit and put her proficiencies where Ms "Speak Sharply and Carry a Huge Blunt
Object" ought to have them.

Q: That's fine. But you can do sillier things with the mod too,
right?

A: Sure. It's worth noting that BioWare was quite content to break the "rules" whenever
they thought it would make a character more vivid or interesting. Minsc lacks
the requisite wisdom to be a ranger. Aerie is a multi-class that elves can't
have. Anomen's wisdom is too low for him to have legally dualed to cleric.
You're just getting that option now too.

Q: Yeah, but I turned Kagain and Korgan into paladins with your
mod, and it was stupid.

A: I bet. Don't do that. I can't tell where you draw the line, so you will
have to make your own choices.

Q: What about the NPCs'
stuff? What happens to it?

A: All of their "generic" items (e.g. Chainmail, Longsword +1) are removed.
They get a new outfit of "generic" items based on the class that you've picked
for them. If you make Imoen a Swashbuckler and give her proficiency in short
bow and short sword, then she'll show up in Candlekeep with a short bow,
twenty arrows, a short sword, and some variety of leather armor.

Signature items are a little more complicated; in the case of, say, Haer'Dalis's
Chaos and Entropy blades, he'll keep them, and the weapons themselves will
be altered so that he can use them regardless of whatever class he is (Fighter/Mage?
Fine, they're Fighter/Mage usable now. Cleric? Uh... okay, he can still use
them, and he'll get his special bonus star in shortswords even though Clerics
can't normally use this kind of weapon.)

In the case of Monks some difficulty ensues: their offhand slot is permanently
occupied because of the kludgy way they're implemented. So it does no good
to make a shield Monk usable if they can't ever equip it. Signature items
for Monks are converted: two-handed sword becomes katana, shield becomes
cloak (shields can be worn over the back ;) ), etc, etc. It's not perfect,
but I can't change the way Monks work.

Q: So, it's possible I might get better stuff when I recruit an NPC?

A: Yep. Since it's always been possible to take NPCs on
the "Quest to Find What's at the Bottom of that there Woodchipper" and pawn
their worldly possessions, I'm not too worried about this. The items they
end up with should be fairly close to what a standard NPC gets:
if you notice any glaring omissions or errors, let me know :)

Q: Lots of NPCs have
special flavor innate abilites, what about those?

A: They're kept; innate abilities are not changed by this mod. Branwen
will still have her Spiritual Hammer if she's a Fighter/Cleric. Minsc will
still have his headwound rage if you make him a Berserker. NPC-only
priest or wizard spells, on the other hand, have to be explicitly assigned.
I can make sure that Jaheira always knows Harper's Call if she can cast spells
(and in fact, that's already done ;) ) but I have to know in advance that
it's a "special" spell. Anything I've missed, let me know :)

Q: What about NPCs added
by mods? Keto wants to be a skald!

A: None at this time. While I find it hypocritical for modders to declare
their work sacrosanct, there's certainly a contingent who expect to have
free reign trampling BioWare's intentions and other modders intentions and
the player's intentions while expecting their own work to be pedestaled higher
than, say, Shakespeare. So mod NPCs aren't
and won't be included without permission. With that said, Wes Weimer won't
care if his NPCs are included,
and J. Compton will probably allow PPGNPCs to
be included if we all buy stock in Broken Hourglass, so it's possible some
will show up later :)

Q: Hitpoints?

A: If you're playing on core or below, maximum. If you're playing on difficult,
anywhere between half maximum and maximum. If you're playing on insane, random.

Q: Let's talk about install order.

A: I sure don't like mandatory install orders. Install BG2 or BG2 and ToB.
Make sure they've got the latest patch. If you're playing Tutu, install the
latest Easy Tutu version; if you're playing BGT,
install the BG2 Fixpack and the
latest BGT version. BG2 Fixpack
is gently suggested; if you decide not to include it, I may not be able to
help you with any in-game bugs or bugs added by Baldurdash.

Other than that, it doesn't really matter. If you want to assign a kit
from a mod, you'll need to install that kit first (otherwise I've no way
of telling that you plan to install it later). If you want to use Ashes of
Embers or something else that changes the rules for weapon proficiencies
around, then that also should go earlier so that this mod will follow the
changed ruleset.

Known Issues

Please report any bugs you notice in this release in the Gibberlings Three
forum thread above. I'll do my best to improve this based on your feedback
:)

PLEASE NOTE:

Any NPC you've modified
that's joined the party won't revert to normal upon uninstalling the mod:
at that point they're permanently stored in the saved game rather than just
afloat in the override. While it's not impossible to mod saved games (just
annoying ) it's not in general a good idea, as scanning through a list of
saves for altered files is pretty much impossible to do without errors of
the game exploding kind. I'm not sure why there'd be a problem with Yoshimo's
dialogues, though - it'll be a bit before I'll have a chance to look into
this.

Q: Oct 14 2007, 01:03 PM, J Beau:

I had an error installing, thought you would like to know about this.
[./override/HAQUAT.CRE] loaded, 1076 bytes [./override/HARPASS1.CRE] loaded,
1464 bytes [./override/HDRAGRED.CRE] loaded, 2512 bytes [./override/HDRAGSIL.CRE]
loaded, 1656 bytes
ERROR: illegal 48-byte read from offset -1 of 1656-byte file HDRAGSIL.CRE
ERROR: [HDRAGSIL.CRE] -> [override/HDRAGSIL.CRE] Patching Failed (COPY) (Failure("HDRAGSIL.CRE:
read out of bounds"))
Stopping installation because of error. ERROR Installing [Nythrun's L1 NPCs,
Beta 6: List party-joinable NPCs (required to install any other components)],
rolling back to previous state [lvl1npcs/backup/0/UNSETSTR.0] SET_STRING
uninstall info not found
I uninstalled the Revised Hell Trials from the Questpack and then it installed
just fine.

Nythrun:

The hdragsil.cre problem is a conflict between Quest Pack and SCSII -
you should be able to work around it by installing the Hell Trials bit of
Quest Pack after SCSII (and
after anything else that might be modifying the dragons); if you don't, taking
the evil path in the Pride[?] trial will crash your game. Of course, you
won't get the updated AI this way. It's not really an error on anyone's part,
but it should be easy enough for Sim or DaveW to work around.

Q: vagrant_winds, Oct 17 2007, 05:47 PM:

After the 1st component of lvl1npcs is installed, when starting a new
game and choosing <CHARNAME>'s class, if I chose Assassin, all alignments
at the "Alignment" screen would be greyed-out out and non-selectable, meaning
character creation was unable to finish with that kit. Until an alignment
is chosen, the "Next" button is unelectable to continue on to rolling Attributes...
and there's no allignment to select. It's possible that this could be a
conflict between 1lv1npcs and Avenger's Rogue Rebalancing. I've had the
same issue weather or not lvl1npcs is installed first or near the end,
but I do not recall if I've had an install with lvl1npcs that hasn't had
Agenger's Rogue Rebalancing on it too.

Nythrun:

Unselectable Assassins: there was a bug in some early versions where I
corrected the internal spelling of a few kits in one place and not in another,
which left no valid alignments for those kits. If you're using Beta6, it's
probably an incompatibility that needs looking into.

Operating System

This is the Windows version - it should be able to run on Mac OSX if the WeiDU .exe
that's bundled with the mod is replaced with a Mac build of WeiDU.
Linux should work too.

Platforms

Ought to work on BG2, Tutu,
or BGT. Has not yet, however,
received any testing on BGT and
has had incomplete testing on the other platforms.

Compatibility

Ought to be compatible with almost everything.

If you'd like to install the "BG1 style
proficiencies" component of BG2 tweaks,
that should be installed after this mod.

Installation

If the mod was previously installed, remove it before extracting the new
version by running Setup-lvl1npcs.exe, uninstalling all previously installed
components and deleting the lvl1npcs folder.

This mod is packaged and installed with WeiDU . To install, simply extract
the contents of the mod into your BG2 , EasyTutu or BGT folder.

The files can be extracted from the archive using WinRAR. If properly extracted, you should
have a lvl1npcs folder and a Setup-lvl1npcs.exe file in your game folder.
To install, simply double-click Setup-lvl1npcs.exe and follow the instructions
on screen.

Please run Setup-lvl1npcs.exe in your game folder to reinstall, uninstall
or otherwise change components.

Tools Used in Creation

This mod uses WeiDU (created
by Westley Weimer, maintained and upgraded by Valerio Bigiani). Get the latest
version at weidu.org. Near Infinity (maintained by Fred
S. Richardson) was used to browse files. Pocket Plane Group is the place to
go to nag the poor guy for updates. Discussion thread has been hosted at
the aforementioned Gibberlings Three which has been good enough to not eject
me despite my irascible and surly disposition. :)

Copyright

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General
Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public License for more details.

These are not "fixes from TS." Really.

Version History

Todo

Find some non-intrusive way to limit proficiency selection to weapons
the character has sufficient stats to wield.

Recode deprecated component, somehow.

Version Six: Ultimate Beta (Revisited, with new Improved Spellchecking)!
(19Oct07)

cmorgan edit: move to README, rename to "level1npcs" because there seems
to be a bunch of versions floating around out there, package for G3

Removed some typo corrections that were applied to original game files;
no one else cares that Avengers are referred to as BEAST_FRIEND which was
dropped before BG2's release
:)

Added a Divine Remix style option to restrict Fighter/Druids from armors
single class Druids cannot wear. It's in the weapon proficiency tweaks,
and it's optional in an optional component :)

Version Five: Barely Beta! (31Mar07)

Updated to WeiDU 199.
There are still a few cases where I'm using some stupid hack rather than
a nice WeiDU action,
but things in general ought to work better. Please note that this mod cannot
run on WeiDU versions
earlier than 199: the Bigg has fixed too many bugs and added too many new
features.

Completely rebuilt primary component; installation ought to proceed much
more quickly. Consequently, most of the creature correction routine has
been removed. Please let me know if the mod chokes on any creatures and
I'll endevour to fix them on a case-by-case basis.

Completely rewrote the weapon assignation routine; it should be slightly
stingier now. Please report any cases of duplicating items to me so that
I may kill myself or fix any remaining bugs, depending on my mood at the
time.

Completely rewrote the armor assignation routine too.

Weapons that have usability restrictions altered by the mod will have
their descriptions updated. We've lost the 3,600 character regular expression
and reverted to a simpler match, so it should be much faster than the original.

Mages will have one spell and specialist mages two spells memorized when
met in game, as a courtesy to those who have no time to rest. Priests will
come with a Cure Light Wounds. Sorcerers come with their own peculiar mechanical
implementation.

Sorcerer kits that select fewer than two spells at first level can be
added now. Uh, who is making sorcerer kits, again?

Deprecated the "Kit exported characters" subcomponent, as the coding
was far too advanced for my own good (i.e. it causes terrible problems
upon uninstall because I am an idiot). Sorry about that. Flee this component.

BG Imoen's Magic Missile wand
had entirely too many charges; now it has ten.

Includes swank htmled readme. Thanks, Miloch!

.tp2 now contains a few // comments. Not many. May add more. Feeling
terse.

Version Four: Beta! (20Mar07)

Major bug that could delete files fixed. I have done the impossible with WeiDU,
and it sucked a lot.

Fixed a bug that prevented installation.

Auto-skipping of unavailable NPCs actually
works now.

Fixed a bug that caused multi-classes with mage kits to receive an unduly
restrictive selection of weapon proficiencies.

Code to skip adding items to NPCs who
shouldn't have any actually works now (OR and AND are not equivalent in
respectible truth tables, silly!)

NPCs with super special
weapons will now have their proficiencies with that weapon incremented
by one if they have some already.

Cleaned up some slop in a couple macros (no effect, but tidier)

Added component which allows kitting of exported characters if they have
none already. Be very careful with this.

Removed GROUP usage that was wasting time and accomplishing nothing.

Commented out the item description updater - it's just too slow.

Alpha Three (8Mar07)

Corrected a bug where some kits received weapon proficiencies from the
next kit in kitlist.2da.

Gave sorcerers their second level one spell (whoops!)

Blocked BG2NPCs from
displaying in Tutu.

Added code to automatically convert any creature effect version to v2
(this has to be done to prevent LOCALS from being truncated if over eight
charcters, and to make sure they can be saved).

Fixed typo in class selection menu.

Blocked barbarians from being selectable as a multiclass (sorry, hardcoded
hitpoint funk here, I can't make this work well).

Made cleric/mages use the (correct) cleric avatar rather than the mage
avatar.

Xan's Moonblade will now be a longsword usable by whatever Xan is, and
he'll get a proficiency point in longsword for free whether that's normally
allowed or not: this represents his deep spiritual bond with the weapon
in the only way the uncouth BG2 engine
can express :)

Fixed a bug where NPCs would
stockpile weapons in their inventory, should be one per customer, Iron
Crisis or no.

Made the armor assignation for BGNPCs a
bit less generous.

Added a bloated preliminary component that allows tampering with weapon
proficiency rules. While there are other, stand-alone mods that do this,
if you want altered rules to apply for this mod, those altered rules would
have to be installed first. So I'm doing it for you :) This component has
received no testing whatsoever, be warned :)

Forced barbarian and wildmage symbols to take a value of 0 in kit.ids.